Florida's freshman senator is sharing his life story with Sean Hannity, playing coy about his vice-presidential prospects with David Gregory, even venturing into the dark abyss that is Charlie Rose's all-black set on PBS.

Whatever the topic, whatever the show, Marco is there.

And that's just the TV time. There's also the book tour — currently making its Southeast swing.

His "American Son" tour hits Orlando on Monday (noon at BJ's Wholesale Club near the Mall at Millenia). After a year in the U.S. Senate, the 41-year-old decided to publish his memoirs — and launch a 24-stop book-signing tour that next heads to Georgia and the Carolinas.

He's got the hype.

Now what he needs is the heft.

This has always been Marco's problem.

He's as good a speaker as the Republicans have right now. He's earnest and handsome. His life story is inspiring. And he talks optimistically of bipartisan solutions to big problems.

But when the rubber meets the road — with specific solutions to problems he talks about the most — he is M.I.A.

Take his recent exchange with Charlie Rose, for example.

Rubio had been waxing eloquently about the need for bipartisan solutions to immigration. He words sounded pretty. But Charlie wanted to know the specifics.

"Well, I don't have an answer to that right now," Rubio said. "I mean … it's not easy to deal with it."

This from a man who had ordained himself a leader on this very topic — and who promised two years ago that, if voters would just send him to Washington, he would find a solution. So Rose followed up.

"Why shouldn't we expect more from you?" the host asked, "…Why shouldn't you have an answer? Why shouldn't a man who began to speak out because he is on foreign affairs and other committees, intelligence committee speak out on this very important issue?"

Gregory played a clip from one of Rubio's previous visits on the show — one where Rubio emphatically vowed that he would not be considered as Mitt Romney's running mate. "I won't consider it," Rubio vowed in the clip. "Under no circumstances."

Flash forward to this month when Romney declared: "Marco Rubio is being thoroughly vetted."

When Gregory asked Rubio to explain, he declined.

Now, none of this is particularly unusual for a politician. They are renowned for back-tracking and evasiveness.

But that's kind of the point, isn't it? Rubio was supposed to be unusual. He was the guy vowing to be different — to "Reclaim America."

Yet what we've seen is politics as usual.

It doesn't make him bad. It just makes him common.

Personally, I don't think Rubio will emerge as Romney's running mate. As much as Romney would love his appeal to Hispanics and Floridians, I don't think Rubio can survive the vetting.

It's one thing to slink past Florida's local-yokel press. The national media spotlight burns brighter. And with Rubio, there is a lot of baggage to highlight.

There was the unadvertised teaching gig he snagged at Florida International University after he steered money to the school as state House speaker.

And the tax money he spent renovating the legislative dining room and on sky-high salaries for his staffers — including a chief of staff who made more than then-Gov. Jeb Bush.

Most damning, though, were revelations of the $100,000 worth of charges that Rubio and his aides racked up on the state GOP's special-interest-funded credit cards — everything from plane trips to $1,800 limousine rides. At least once, he was caught double-billing things to both the party and taxpayers. When caught, he repaid the party.

He was a man who benefited from largesse while railing against it.

And I'm not sure Romney needs the baggage of a Republican who proposed the largest sales-tax increase in Florida history — a property-tax swap so regressive that even Rubio's GOP peers refused to advance it.

Really, though, the ghosts of Rubio's past might matter less if he demonstrated more courage in the present.

This country is hungry for new leadership and eager for people who will do more.

Rubio may not be ready to lead the country.

But if he stepped up his game, he could actually help solve some of the problems he spends so much time talking about on TV.